


Less Than or Equal To

by morioriohno



Category: One Piece
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Bittersweet, Gen, Hurt, Moving On, Nakamaship, Rivals, Survivor Guilt, basically Im a ho for making everything go wrong at thriller bark
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-30
Updated: 2019-06-30
Packaged: 2020-05-31 00:52:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,086
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19415068
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/morioriohno/pseuds/morioriohno
Summary: Zoro feels numb as it hits him that Sanji isn’t going to wake up.





	Less Than or Equal To

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Search No More](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17785604) by [morioriohno](https://archiveofourown.org/users/morioriohno/pseuds/morioriohno). 



The lull of Thriller Bark’s morning is broken by a low groan, followed immediately by a coughing fit. 

Zoro pushes off of the ground sharply, choking on the dust-laden air as his lungs try to supply him with the oxygen he needs. It takes way longer than he expects to get his breathing back to normal—somehow, his body almost seems like it’s forgotten how to function properly. Why the fuck was he facedown on the ground? He definitely wasn’t _planning_ on taking a nap with a face-full of gravel. 

He opens eyes lethargic from exhaustion, and...and something else. _Fuck_ , this is a hell of a migraine. He has to blink twice as much as usual just to get his eyes to focus on the bloody rubble beneath him. Wait, blood? Is that his? 

He runs a hand across his face and the back of his head and stops when he feels a familiar slickness dripping down from somewhere in his hair, along his scalp. Yep. Definitely his. What did he do to get this fucked up?

Zoro shakes the blood off his fingers. His mind tries to find an answer, but the migraine is far worse than his average hangover and nothing he can think up really seems to stick. It takes far more concentration than he’d like to admit to slowly piece together what happened. He...they’re on Thriller Bark, right? Yeah, no, they didn’t leave yet so they must still be here. But Moria’s gone, Luffy fucked him up good after the rest of the crew had brought down Oars. He remembers that much at least. Everyone got their shadows back—and just in time too. Otherwise they’d have all been fucked when that Warlord showed up, what was his name...

_Kuma._

The events of the early morning all ram into Zoro’s chest like a shotgun blast at point-blank. Kuma. Zoro offering his own life to the Warlord in exchange for sparing Luffy’s.

The unexpected jolt of a heel colliding with the back of his head, and the world tilting precariously away from him before everything went dark.

That _bastard_. 

Zoro stands up too quickly and immediately stumbles, his concussion merciless—and now he’s realizing that, indeed, the fucker’s well-placed kick gave him a _concussion._ Why the fuck would Sanji kick so hard at a time like that, when Zoro was trying to sacrifice himself for everyone’s sake, _including_ the cook?! What, was he just planning to let Luffy get slaughtered instead? He couldn’t have thought it was a smart idea to start a fight with Zoro then. There’s a time and place for everything, including but not limited to that idiot’s ego, misogyny and stupidity, and that was _absolutely_ not the time or the place for any of Sanji’s shit.

It’s not just anger that propels him upright. There’s something off about the whole situation, something that Zoro doesn’t know how to feel about. Sanji, all his ~~many~~ shortcomings aside, is _never_ one to butt into another pirate’s battle. And he’s never one to sneak attack a crewmate, for any reason. That’s just not his style. The bastard always has to take his sweet time, lecturing his victims on the angsty agony that is the job of a chef on the high seas, all while taking another addiction-fueled drag off of one of those disgusting cigarettes he’s rarely seen without. Chivalry and shit like that, not cheap shots.

Zoro can at least respect that Sanji has a shred of honor and decency hidden somewhere under the three piece suit. Kicking Zoro hard enough to knock him out? Sanji would _never_ take an action like that—not without a warning, at least.

And there had been nothing.

Something a little more nauseating than just a measly concussion settles in Zoro’s stomach, but he forces it aside. He’ll let the bastard have it later, once he can even stand to look him in the eye. He hopes Sanji feels bad about himself and his stupid decisions right about now. And if he doesn’t, well, they can fix that.

As he tries to regain his balance, murmurs start drifting over to him from across the rubble. The others must be stirring. Are they all safe? For a moment, Zoro starts to panic, hands instinctively reaching for Wado at his side—but before he can let his mind get too far ahead of itself, Luffy’s exuberant cheers break through the noise and he breathes a sigh of relief. If the captain’s okay, and if he’s celebrating, then everyone must be alright. It’s kind of weird that they’re not hurt—after all, Kuma came for a head. Did he just leave without taking any?

Zoro shakes his head a couple times to clear it of some of the thick fog, but all it does is make him feel even more disoriented. Fuck, he’s gonna absolutely _destroy_ the cook for this as soon as he gets his hands on him.

The chatter in the distance grows louder as more and more people wake from Kuma’s first attack. He can definitely hear Luffy without having to strain at all, and Chopper and Franky and that new skeleton guy (Brook, right?) are all a close second in volume. Occasionally he can catch the faintest hints of Nami’s voice as she squeals over the treasure haul—naturally, that witch—and vaguely he can hear Usopp talking to Robin whenever the conversation lulls. No cook. Maybe he’s just being quiet? Or he was knocked unconscious by Kuma since he thought it was smarter to fight the bastard alone and would have undoubtedly been proven wrong. _Or_ he was knocked unconscious by being in the presence of more than two women at the same time—it’s on brand, at least. When Zoro finds him, they are going to have _words_. Calm, unbiased and incredibly violent words.

Oh, fuck, his body hurts like all hell right now. Every action he takes ignites stars of agony behind his eyes, and his body is still reeling from taking so many hits from Oars—clearly the concussion isn’t the only injury afflicting him right now. Zoro gives himself a moment to make sure he can stand properly and then, almost unbearably slowly, starts walking back towards the sounds of his crew. He keeps walking. And walking. After ten grueling minutes of passing the same rubble pile three times, it dawns on him that he has no idea where the fuck he’s going, despite having the audio cues to lead him back.

He stops at a short cliff—looks like a drop to a lower level of Thriller Bark’s castle—to try and orient himself. Refusing to admit that he’s actually kind of bothered for once by his lack of directional awareness, he scowls and looks around again, scanning for any signs of people, and that’s when he spots the cook. 

Zoro _definitely_ doesn’t acknowledge the small wave of relief that rolls over him, clearing the haze from his mind for a moment. Nope. He doesn’t feel it. Not even a little. What relief?

His eyes narrow reflexively as he draws nearer to the ledge, studying the cook from his vantage point. The slender man is seated leaning back against what probably used to be part of a small building, but has since been reduced to a single stone wall and rubble. He’s too far away to see any details—but for reasons beyond him, Zoro fixates on the fact that the cook’s hair has fallen in front of his face completely. He looks stupid, but, admittedly, marginally less stupid than he would if Zoro could see his eyebrows. 

It only takes a minute to find a place where the destroyed castle has collapsed enough for Zoro to walk down to where Sanji’s currently seated. He looks kind of ragged—probably got knocked out like Zoro thought. Well, that’s what he gets for fighting Kuma alone. 

“Asshole,” Zoro mutters under his breath as he stops and crouches at Sanji’s side. He’s not moving, his arms hanging limp at his sides, head lolling forward slightly like his hair is weighing him down. There’s a package of cigarettes pinned loosely under one of his hands, and about half of the contents have been dumped on the ground. Definitely unconscious, but from the looks of him it’s nothing Chopper can’t fix. Maybe he’s got a concussion too. Serves him right.

Still, the unconsciousness is kind of unfortunate, given the situation. It’s not gonna be easy to get back to the Sunny when neither one of them is exactly in peak physical condition. Not that Zoro _can’t_ carry him—the guy’s barely heavier than a twig, that’s not the issue. It’s just that usually, whenever it’s just the two of them, Sanji’s the navigator. How the hell is Zoro supposed to get the cook back to Chopper if he can’t find his way back to the group on his own? Of course Sanji couldn’t make it easy for Zoro, he just _had_ to get knocked the fuck out on the other side of Thriller Bark.

Guess he’ll just have to wing it then. Zoro would rather die than carry the bastard bridal style, though. The others would never let him live it down—Sanji included.

“You’re _such_ an asshole,” Zoro repeats firmly, pretty sure the cook can’t hear him. He reaches down for the cook’s hand, planning to pocket the cigarettes and give them back later after a substantial amount of heckling, but he stops when his fingers brush over Sanji’s knuckles and the single sensation wipes any trace of mockery from his mind.

The cook is icy to the touch.

Zoro rips his hand away as if Sanji’s skin had instead been burning—and then immediately locks his hand around Sanji’s wrist, checking, waiting for a pulse. His mind races back through his memories of the cook, the rare moments when their bodies had made contact, skin on skin, body temperature radiating through layers of clothing—each one reminding him over and over that the cook’s body has always felt like a furnace.

The sudden pounding in his chest makes it impossible to tell if it’s him or the cook that he’s feeling under his fingers. He lasts maybe five seconds before he gets too impatient with waiting for a pulse, and he reaches up to push Sanji’s hair out of his face and get a better look.

A short trail of blood steadily drips from the side of the cook’s mouth. His eyes are partly open, but unfocused and dull. The usual steely blue of the blonde’s eyes has faded to the color of an overcast sky.

Zoro feels numb as it hits him that Sanji isn’t going to wake up.

Slowly, unthinkingly, Zoro pulls away from his nakama and lets the blonde’s hair fall back in front of his eyes. Vaguely he registers how still Sanji had been when Zoro had first approached. He hasn’t moved.

_Sanji isn’t going to wake up._

Zoro pulls his knees up to his chest and just stares, waiting for Sanji to prove him wrong like he always does. A part of him wants to wrap the cook up in his arms and shake him—make him move, make him wake up, somehow. Another part of him just wants to run as far as possible, as fast as his legs can take him. He can’t decide which to follow, so he stays where he is, unable to approach, unable to flee.

In his mind Zoro is a child again, sprinting back into the dojo to find the unmoving body of his dearest friend, and his hand grasps blindly at the hilt of Wado and latches on like it’s a lifeline.

_Not again. Please, not again._

_Prove me wrong._

_Fucking prove me wrong, Sanji._

He’s not sure how long he stays there, staring at Sanji’s lifeless body, torn between accepting the obvious and denying the impossible. His hand feels like it might break from holding Wado so tightly.

_Human beings really are fragile, aren’t they?_

Not him. Sanji has never been fragile. _Never._

Zoro barely even notices when yells and sprinting footsteps all come barreling towards him—they pass right through him, intangible. Even when someone—Luffy, face tight with confusion and concern—crouches down in front of him and tries to shake him out of it, even as Chopper scrambles past him towards Sanji, med kit already open, Zoro doesn’t move. He doesn't even move when Chopper tries to lower Sanji to the ground and the cook’s body collapses like a puppet with the strings cut.

Only when he sees the blood spattered against the wall where the cook had been does he move, intaking a sharp breath. Luffy screams something and moves away and it’s suddenly Usopp in front of Zoro, looking like he might be sick. His eyes are red. Usopp’s mouth makes shapes and sounds probably directed at Zoro, but none of them mean anything.

_Prove me wrong._

Zoro moves only as much as it takes to see Chopper scoop up the cook’s limp body and sprint back towards the castle with Luffy and Robin in tow—when they pass out of his field of view, he returns to his frozen position, as if so much as breathing will set time back in motion.

“Zoro...” Nami’s voice is hoarse—it dawns on Zoro that he may have heard her crying. To her credit, Nami doesn’t wait for him to ask for help. She moves Usopp out of the way and gently pulls Zoro to his feet, wrapping his arm around her shoulders for support. Zoro doesn’t resist, his mind still locked on the cook’s dull eyes, searching for color that he knows isn’t there.

The crew makes their way back to the castle in near silence, the only sounds their tentative footsteps in the rubble. As he looks across their faces, Zoro thinks they all have a little hope written in there. They have so much faith in Chopper, they think he can fix anything. But Zoro knows better.

There’s no fixing those eyes.

* * *

Sanji is pronounced dead at 5:12 AM, only a few short minutes after the dawn. Chopper’s eyes are streaming thick, heavy tears when he emerges from the castle infirmary with the news.

The tension in the air snaps abruptly and the captain doesn’t wait for an explanation. Luffy bursts to his feet and sprints into the room, and Chopper just lets him go.

Chopper explains his analysis in a quiet, detached voice. 

Sanji died from a cervical spinal injury. On the outside, his body appeared nearly unharmed—but internally, his first five vertebrae had been shattered on impact. Something slammed his body back against that wall so hard it instantly severed his spinal cord and snapped his neck, the shattered vertebrae ripping holes into his heart and lungs. He had to have been in excruciating agony for the last short moments of his life. At the very least, Chopper chokes out past a sob, it was quick.

Zoro doesn’t mention that it must have been Kuma who dealt the final blow. 

There’s a moment of silence, of stillness, where nobody knows how to react to what they’ve just heard. There’s a gap in the group, everyone can feel it, and Chopper has just said that it’s permanent.

Nami suddenly collapses against Usopp’s chest and the two of them cry, their sobs jolting everyone back to reality. They’re holding onto each other like there’s nothing else in the world. It’s too much for Chopper, and he jumps into their pile and they quickly wrap him up in their embrace. The adults keep their distance, but there’s no mistaking the stricken look on Robin’s face or the heartbroken expression that Franky is trying to conceal. Brook, the newest addition to the crew, says nothing, but he knows death too well and his reaction is one of resignation.

Zoro doesn’t feel anything, and it’s fucking him up.

As he surveys his nakama, he realizes he hasn’t said a word since finding Sanji. He should be feeling the pain just like everyone else, he _knows_ he should, but when he tries to open his mouth and say something he finds that he can’t, because what the fuck is he supposed to say? The cook is _dead_ , nothing he can say will change that—

Something catches in his throat and suddenly he’s hit with the immutable realization that he _can’t_ be here right now. This isn’t right. Seeing everyone here, seeing his crew, seeing them but not _all_ of—he can’t be here. This isn’t right.

He barely even notices as his feet carry him backwards, step by step away from his crew, away from the castle. His pace quickens with every step until he’s in a dead sprint. Somehow he finds himself climbing up the side of the Sunny, scrambling across the familiar landscape and nearly tripping over himself in his haste to scale the ladder to the crow’s nest. 

He pulls himself through the hatch and surveys the room. To his dismay it’s been ransacked, courtesy of Moria’s crew and their past looting spree. Doesn’t seem like anything was taken though. All his training equipment has been tossed about, probably by someone who didn’t see any point in looting it.

He reaches for one of the barbells, intending to start putting things back in their proper place, but stops short.

_“Oi! The hell was that for?!” Zoro barks, just narrowly ducking underneath one of Sanji’s well-placed kicks. Zoro just barely manages to balance the barbell in his grip before it can pin him to the ground—he’s no weakling, but he’d been pushing himself today and the weights are heavier than usual._

_“Your ugly face forgot to show at dinner,” the cook mutters back, placing a plate of whatever today’s special was on the bench across the training room. “Eat up, marimo, and if you're not at breakfast tomorrow, so help me, even the lovely Nami-swan herself couldn’t hold me back from murdering you.”_

_Zoro scoffs and gets back into position, lifting the weights up again. “Yeah, you’re right. You’d probably be drooling over her so hard you’d just slip right out of her grasp.”_

_The chef raises a stupid eyebrow. “Aren’t you supposed to be training? You know, if you use all two of your brain cells to trash talk our dear navigator, there’ll be nothing left for your stupid sword styles.”_

_“Unlike you, I don’t need to waste brainpower on fighting.”_

_“Is that a fact?”_

_“Yep, straight from me and all two of my brain cells,” Zoro snaps back. “I’m surprised you even know what a brain is, stupid-ass.”_

_“...You wanna fucking go?”_

_Zoro casts a lazy look at the cook, who’s scowling in his bastardy way and biting on a cigarette so hard it looks ready to fall apart in his teeth. “Depends. You think you can take me?”_

It had turned into a fight. It always did.

Sanji had won.

A weird, strangled sound shudders loose from his vocal chords and he doesn't really think, he just winds up and lashes out with his foot, hard enough to send the barbell flying across the room and embed it a few inches into the wall.

Zoro stares at what he’s done for all of two seconds before something in him breaks and he drops to the ground in an almost eerily relaxed crosslegged pose. He doesn’t _feel_ relaxed. He feels more agitated than he can ever remember feeling before. His fingers drum frenetically against the hardwood floor beneath him as he thinks, as he remembers.

Sanji had won that fight by using the training weights against him. Zoro hadn’t had time to move them away and Sanji had utilized their weight to pin Zoro down.

And now Sanji is gone.

It hasn’t quite sunk in yet. Zoro doesn’t know what happened after he blacked out—he just knows Sanji was alive, and now...now there’s just a gap in everything. Like someone cut a hole into the Sunny. It just doesn’t seem right that Kuma could have defeated him. Sanji shouldn’t have—

He stops himself with a shake of his head. Somewhere deep down, he _knows_ what’s making him feel wrong, but like hell is he going down that rabbit hole just yet.

Zoro thinks he might be waiting for the joke. For the cook to run in with a smirk on his face and pronounce loudly that it was all a ruse, a con, all to get under Zoro’s skin.

But the cook wouldn’t joke like that. No, he’s been on the brink of death before, just like the rest of them, and he’s seen death with his own eyes. Death isn’t a joke, it isn’t a—a _prank._ It’s real, and it’s unexpected, and it—

_And it should have been me._

Something stings behind his eyes and he furiously shoves his face into his hands, a muffled scream echoing bleakly through the sails. 

For a moment, it almost feels cathartic—except then the statement repeats in his head, and it’s all he can do to stop himself from screaming again. 

_It should have been me. I could’ve taken it, whatever it was, and we’d all be here, we wouldn’t be in pieces, we’d be whole._

The crew is in fragments right now. Sanji is gone. Sanji will never cook again for the crew. Sanji will never kick a man so hard he sets the fucker on fire. Sanji will never get to see the All Blue, and it’s not right. It’s not fair that Zoro is the one who gets a chance to achieve his goal of being the world’s greatest swordsman when he failed to protect his nakama. 

Because Zoro couldn’t save him, Sanji is a checklist of things that will never happen. 

“...Zoro, are you...?”

The meekness of Luffy’s voice startles Zoro and he sits up sharply, looking towards the hatch to the crow’s nest. Luffy is standing at the entrance, his eyes clouded, his mouth in a tight line. The captain’s shirt is noticeably bloodier, which Zoro tries not to think about.

Zoro realizes from Luffy’s surprised stare that he must’ve been crying—he roughly wipes away whatever tears have fallen onto his face and eventually fixes his gaze on the floor. He hasn’t cried since Baratie. Hey, wasn’t that where he first met the cook? Funny how that works out.

The soft padding of leather flipflops on hardwood tells Zoro that Luffy has taken a seat beside him. He glances over and sees the sadness in Luffy’s eyes, shining behind the tears that threaten to spill over. The younger boy pulls his legs up to his chest and hugs himself, and Zoro is suddenly reminded of the fact that the captain of the Straw Hat Pirates is only seventeen. There are adults on the ship, sure, but most of them aren’t even out of their teens yet. They’ve gone through a lot already, sometimes Zoro forgets.

Luffy sits beside him in silence, his body radiating warmth.

“When I woke up, all my pain was gone, Thriller Bark was a mess, and Sanji was dead. Do you know what happened?”

Zoro freezes as he feels Luffy’s intelligent eyes lock onto his—not judging, not warning, just waiting for an answer. He tries to straighten out his thoughts enough to respond.

“There was another Warlord who showed up after you beat Moria,” Zoro says shortly. His throat feels too tight to talk properly but he continues anyway. “Bartholomew Kuma. I don’t know what happened to your pain but the man was fucking impossible to beat. He tried to bargain for your life. We all said no. Then he nearly blew up the entire castle. I tried to—“

Luffy would never forgive him if he knew that Zoro had tried to give up his life in exchange for Luffy’s. Zoro stops, considers what he’s saying under the hawkish stare Luffy’s giving him, and amends. “I tried to take him on myself, it didn’t seem like anyone else was awake. Then something hit me on the back of the head and when I woke up I was alone.”

“You think it was Sanji,” Luffy completes. A statement, not a question. His captain knows him too well. Zoro just nods.

The captain is silent for another moment.

“He gave up his life to save mine,” Luffy says slowly, putting it together. Another statement, more painful than the last. Zoro can hear the resignation in his captain’s realization, and it hurts.

“We don’t know—“

Zoro’s words die in his throat at the hollow look Luffy throws him. They _do_ know. _Luffy_ knows that Sanji died for him. And Luffy’s no idiot where it counts. If Sanji knocked Zoro out, it was to stop Zoro from sacrificing himself. It was to take Zoro’s place.

_It should have been me._

“He... If he sacrificed himself for our crew, then we shouldn’t lie to ourselves about it,” Luffy says carefully. Zoro can hear the effort it’s taking Luffy to say this so calmly, just like Zoro had told him to in Water 7. “Sanji gave up on finding his dream so that I still have a chance to achieve mine. You tried to do the same but Sanji beat you to it.”

“He was always faster,” Zoro grumbles bitterly before he can stop himself. That at least gets Luffy to quirk a half-smile, before they both suddenly notice the past tense and the smile disappears.

“You found him, right?”

Zoro nods, unable to do more at the unbidden mental image of Sanji’s corpse among the rubble.

“I’m sorry that it was you, it’s the captain’s duty to protect his crew and it shouldn’t have fallen on you to find him. And I should have been stronger, he shouldn’t have been in a position where he chose to sacrifice himself in the first place. It wasn’t fair. _None_ of this is fair! I—“

The captain’s voice had been getting faster and faster, until suddenly he seems to choke on his words and stops. Luffy takes a deep, shuddering breath and shifts his body next to Zoro so that their shoulders are touching. The rubber man visibly deflates and suddenly he’s just a scared kid again. Between his trembling and the dismay in his voice, his words are almost inaudible. “I always wanted to be a pirate, and I, I knew that there were always risks to becoming one. I knew that if _I_ died, as long as it was in pursuit of my dream, it was fine, but...I-I didn’t want anyone _else_ to—“

Luffy stops suddenly with a broken sob and throws his arms around Zoro’s chest, holding on like they’re adrift in the sea and he's trying not to drown. Zoro wastes no time in pulling Luffy closer into a desperate hug of his own as Luffy sobs heavily into his shoulder. Zoro doesn’t cry, probably. He just holds onto his friend as tight as he can, trying to reassure Luffy that he’s still here, that he still has the rest of the crew here for him, just with the strength of his embrace.

Zoro wants to curse at Sanji for making Luffy cry like this, but can’t bring himself to yell at a dead man.

* * *

After a short and painful debate, the crew decides to bury Sanji beside the remains of Brook’s old crew, in the cemetery on Thriller Bark. Who knows when they’ll get back to Baratie—Zeff will find out sooner or later, so Robin and Usopp send a letter to the man explaining what they can of the situation.

They make a small grave for Sanji with what they can find. The headstone reads “Blackleg Sanji”. Franky and Usopp managed to decorate it with a long curved sheet of black glass that glimmers as if on fire when the light hits it—classy, yet dangerous. Zoro not so grudgingly admits that it’s perfect for the cook’s final resting place. He’s taken to letting himself respect Sanji just a little bit more, now that he’s not here to hear it. Nami plants one of her tangerine trees in the soil behind the headstone. She seems insistent on leaving it to “watch over him” or something. Nobody gives her any trouble.

When nobody but Brook is left in the graveyard, Zoro buries the broken blade of Yubashiri half a foot into the ground over where Sanji’s body lies. This way, maybe the two of them can watch over each other, wherever they are. Yeah. A broken sword, a dead man, and a tangerine tree. Sounds like a party. He sits there for longer than he needs to with Brook, the two of them in silent mourning. Zoro’s also taken to talking a lot less—after all, he doesn’t exactly have someone to yell at anymore.

When the Sunny leaves Thriller Bark, the gloom of the hallowed ghost island remains on the ship, but business continues as it has to. Nami navigates, Franky fixes, and everyone else finds a way to be useful. But everyone’s different now, they all know it, even if nobody says anything. Brook’s music has become a lifeline for the Straw Hats, his melodies stirring fondness for what was instead of regret for what will never be, and after some adjustment he melds in seamlessly. Robin and Usopp have taken over the kitchen when necessary, using Sanji’s emergency cookbook for guidance. It’s not Sanji’s cooking, but it’s Sanji’s recipes, so everyone makes do, even if nobody’s been eating as much since they left. Zoro’s been content lately to just grab a bottle of sake and duck back into the crow’s nest to train, only eating when absolutely necessary. After all, it’s not the same.

The crew all notice how Zoro freezes up at any mention of Sanji, how he can’t bring himself to talk about what happened when he found the body. Nobody presses him, thankfully, because he doesn’t think he can take being pressed right now. He’s lost the one safe outlet he had for his frustration, his anger, his wrath—and nobody on the crew can balance him out the way that curly browed pervert cook could. So whenever he notices something that might frustrate him, that might just push him over the edge, he just...leaves. Just like when he couldn’t bring himself to stay by the infirmary on Thriller Bark, he doesn’t give a reply, doesn’t add his input. He just removes himself from the situation and goes back to training until his fingers bleed, back to taking his mind off those cold, dead eyes. 

The numbness from when he’d found Sanji’s body is back. He doesn’t know if it counts as depression, per se, but whatever it is, it doesn’t feel awesome. To counteract it, a few days into the travel to Fishman Island he sets a new goal for himself. A midway point of sorts.

Before he defeats Mihawk, he’s going to destroy Kuma. He’ll get strong enough to cut through steel and flesh and wires and bones and whatever it takes to get revenge in his nakama’s stead.

But the journey goes on. The Sunny runs into a mermaid and some starfish guy, and they rescue this octopus dude that Zoro half-recognizes, and Zoro does his part but otherwise stays out of it. Sanji always wanted to meet a mermaid. By the time the Sunny reaches Sabaody, the crew has begun smiling and laughing again. Zoro is quieter than ever, and tactfully nobody comments on the fact that he barely quirks a half-grin at one of Usopp’s jokes that would normally have him head over heels with laughter. They let him wander the archipelago on his own, since even he can admit that he hasn’t been the best company lately. 

He walks and walks, kind of mindlessly, before he eventually winds up in a bar and drinks himself into a stupor. It takes more alcohol than he’d like—usually he has a policy of never letting the alcohol get to his head, but today he doesn’t really feel like preserving his sobriety. Unfortunately, getting absolutely wasted is expensive.

No longer fully in control of his mental faculties, Zoro places an indeterminate number of bills on the counter in front of the bartender. Probably too much but whatever—Nami can kill him for that later, punch him so hard he _hits the wall and instantly shatters his first five vertebrae just like Kuma did to Sanji._ Hm, let’s abandon this train of thought, more liquor please.

His hand finds purchase on a bottle on the counter—he’s paying a little extra, what’s the harm in nabbing a bottle. Zoro makes as if to stand, but stops when he notices that the bartender’s attention has been on him for some time. As he tries to match her glare and look more put together than he is, he instead fixates on the long cigarette idly held between her lips. It looks effortless.

_Zoro coughs hard at the inhale of smoke, earning a laugh from Sanji. “—pfgh—what the fuck, cook, you actually LIKE this crap?! No wonder all your food tastes like garbage!”_

_Sanji says nothing, that fucker, not even to the jab at his cooking. The idiot’s too busy laughing at Zoro’s misery. In fact, it’s escalated to a point where the cook is clutching desperately at his own chest, heaving deep breaths of clean air between his guffaws. Zoro himself isn’t quite breathing right—smoke still clogs his airways too much for even his insults to have any bite to them._

_When they both finally remember how to breathe, Sanji pulls another cigarette from his pocket and lights it with a practiced flourish of his lighter. Bastard even smirks as he places it between his lips and takes a deep drag off of the cigarette. Fucking unbelievable, how effortless this shit is to him. He even makes enjoying one of those poison sticks as they slowly destroy his lungs look elegant._

Then she moves and the spell is broken.

Zoro leaves without another word.

* * *

Zoro makes his way to Grove 1 without trouble for once—it’s pretty easy to follow the signs, they're just numbers and he knows how to count so it’s way easier than trying to remember directions. He shows up at the Human Shop around the same time that the rest of the crew does, and quickly finds out from the ensuing chaos that Luffy just punched a World Noble and basically summoned an admiral to the archipelago. Seems in character. Zoro goes along with it. He slashes enemies, dodges bullets, and follows his captain as always. It’s good, getting into fights now—it’s easier to put himself on autopilot, stop thinking, stop feeling things. Stop seeing that one body everywhere he goes, and the more his kill count rises, the higher the pile of bodies gets—and the harder it is to picture that black suit stained red with blood.

He keeps going. Even when the admiral and his lackeys show up, even when the cheap knockoff robot versions of Kuma start attacking, even when Luffy tells the crew to split up and come back in three days, he does what his mind is programmed to do. Follow Luffy. Protect who you can.

Only when he catches sight of a tattered copy of the Bible does he finally snap out of it.

Zoro stops running and spins around and sees _him,_ the _real_ one, standing over the smoldering remains of another Pacifista, and his vision goes red. And for just one moment, nothing matters but his goal and his target. Shusui whispers to him greedily, desperate for blood, and in his fury Zoro is more than happy to oblige.

Ignoring the screams from the rest of the crew, Zoro launches himself at Kuma as fast as he can and brings Shusui and Wado down on the side of Kuma’s shoulder, where he had attacked Kuma before, back at Thriller Bark before Kuma had _killed Sanji._ He pours every ounce of his strength, his hatred, into his blades, ignoring everything but the two of them.

Kuma merely looks up at him with those dead blank eyes as the blades clash against the plating of his body—he must have gotten repaired since Thriller Bark, there’s no weakness in the metal and it refuses to give. Finally the blades slip and Zoro loses his balance for a split second but that’s all Kuma needs to repel him back against one of the mangroves hard enough to make Zoro spit up blood. 

_So this is what the cook felt like._

“Roronoa Zoro,” Kuma says—when did he get in front of Zoro? Wasn’t he just over there? Oh, right, teleportation. He’s too powerful, too fast, but Zoro refuses to acknowledge that because _the bastard took his cook_. 

Zoro gets up, head spinning, mind set.

Kuma slowly pulls off one of his gloves as Zoro brandishes his swords again. “If you were to go on a vacation,” he queries, “where would you like to go?”

_I don’t want a damn vacation. I want revenge_ _._

Zoro doesn’t see the paw coming until it’s too late, and in an instant, he’s gone without a trace.

* * *

So revenge didn't work out.

A year has passed since Zoro woke up on Kuragaina Island, since Luffy’s brother died, since Zoro realized that they weren’t meeting up on Sabaody for another two years. Since Zoro realized that finding, let alone fighting Kuma was impossible in that time. Since Zoro realized he’d been dropped on the doorstep of his greatest rival, Dracule Mihawk, since Mihawk agreed to train him during his two year break from pirating. There’s been a lot of realizing things lately, a lot of bitter pills to swallow.

But there are some upsides to the world going to shit. The past year has been grueling, brutal training, nonstop, and in that time, it’s been hard to think about anything but getting stronger. You could almost call it a relief. He’s starting to get the hang of his Haki, it’s slow going, but it’s going nonetheless. He still can’t get his armament to last for longer than a few seconds, but millisecond by millisecond he’s getting there. He’s getting closer to the booze Mihawk promised him as a prize, and that’s always awesome.

A year has passed since Zoro woke up on Kuragaina Island, and he’s thinking about Sanji again. 

It starts small. During a particularly boring dinner one night he idly thinks to himself that the cook’s food was better than the crap Perona and Mihawk make. Nausea at that realization takes over and he flees dinner like a bat out of hell, goes back to weightlifting until he’s too tired to stand or even notice how hungry he is. Mid-training the next day he gets a sudden craving for Sanji’s onigiri, and that untimely realization slows his reaction time by a split second and gets him a pretty painful bruise on his forearm that he regrets for days. The next time he gets cut on his leg, he catches himself wishing he could block blades with his legs like Sanji could. How badass would that be?

Little by little, these memories he’s been working hard to bury poke through, unbidden, unwanted. Digging little holes in his focus, his concentration, until one day there’s nowhere to go but down.

Today’s spar with Mihawk is the worst he’s ever had. Mihawk is relentless as always, but for some reason, Zoro just keeps missing openings, keeps slipping up attacks. His armament refuses to activate when he needs it, leaving Zoro blocking and dodging for his damn life. As Zoro just barely parries one near-fatal blow and loses his balance, he doesn’t move in time to block the next as it comes at his face and there’s a splash of blood and a burst of pain and suddenly the left side of his face is on fire. The pain is agonizing, but Zoro refuses to acknowledge it and readies his swords again.

“Hm. We’re done for today.”

Zoro blinks in surprise, momentarily forgetting the wound, and immediately regrets it as he presses a hand over his eye with a hiss of pain. He’s been wounded in spars before, but never like this. The blood drips freely over his hand and down his arm, pooling on the floor below him. To Mihawk’s credit, he doesn’t comment on what a sorry sight Zoro must be right now, just watches silently as Zoro shakes the blood off and tries to ready his blade again. “I can still—“

“No, you can’t,” Mihawk replies in that dry way of his that leaves no room for argument. Zoro’s gotten a little better at reading the man by now, and right now his hawkish gaze is full of disappointment. “You’re distracted, and now that you’re definitely going to lose that eye, you’ll have a whole new challenge to face with depth perception. This will set you back a month at best. We’ll continue in a few days after you’ve begun to heal.”

“A few days?” That’s too long. Every day counts, and he’s sure as hell not sitting around on this island doing nothing while every other Strawhat is probably working their asses off. “Look, it’ll be fine, we can just start again tomorrow—“

“Are you hoping to die, Roronoa?”

Mihawk’s stare pins him down, and anything Zoro was trying to say dies in his throat.

Seemingly satisfied by Zoro’s sudden inability to speak, Mihawk heads back to the castle without another word—and Zoro follows, because what else is he going to do? Mihawk’s right. He’s always good at calling out Zoro for the smallest thing— _your shoe’s untied, you didn’t sleep enough, you got lost again, you’re getting depressed about your dead nakama._ The little things.

When Perona sees Zoro’s mangled face a few minutes later, she almost screams his ears off, but despite her initial reaction she somehow manages to stitch and bandage it up so it doesn’t feel like his left eye is gonna combust in his skull anymore. He’s secretly a little relieved that they stopped for the day—adrenaline is fading and he’s only noticing now how much it hurts. The scar’s gonna look pretty badass too.

After a few minutes of silence, Perona tries to ask what happened out there. Well, not _ask._ Demand. Shriek like the harpy she is. Being the pinnacle of healthy communication that he is, Zoro deflects, ignores, anything he can do so he doesn’t have to think about what had actually been going through his head the moment he decided not to dodge.

She eventually goes away. Thank fucking _god,_ there’s only so much of her he can take, and this has already been more than a week’s worth of interaction with Perona in the space of a few hours. Zoro is given strict instructions to stay in bed which he promptly ignores, choosing instead to wander around the castle. He’s not much for exploring, but _not_ exploring means he has to start thinking about things again and that’s an absolute no-go.

Mihawk was right about the whole depth perception thing being a pain in the ass—everything looks flat, he keeps narrowly avoiding slamming into hall corners at every turn. He manages to figure it out by using Wado in her sheath as a way to tell when the walls are closer than they seem. Somehow he winds up in the main hall (he could have sworn he was avoiding it), and feeling more than a little drained from the blood loss and injury, he plops down on one of the nearest couch and closes his eyes. Eye? Right, it’s only kind of sinking in now that his stupid fuckup today cost him an eye. Stupid, stupid _stupid_. 

He falls into a fitful but thankfully dreamless sleep, tossing and turning for who knows how long. When he wakes up, he’s surprised to see that Mihawk has taken a seat opposite him, a newspaper in one hand and a glass of wine in the other. It’s about as far from hostile as the bastard ever gets, so Zoro reluctantly refrains from drawing his swords.

“You’re awake.” The man doesn’t even look away from the paper as Zoro pushes up onto his elbows. “I seem to recall that you have a bedroom on the other side of this castle, Roronoa.”

Zoro grunts in acknowledgement, still half-asleep. Talking with Mihawk is always...weird, awkward. The man’s small talk is arguably worse than Zoro’s. He’d rather avoid it if he can.

“How’s your eye?”

He shrugs. “The witch used some of those dissolvable stitches, ‘s not the worst I’ve ever had but the eye is fucked and it’s still gonna scar,” Zoro says blankly. It’s gonna look cool, sure, but it’s still going to serve as a reminder of his fuckup today. That he wasn’t strong enough back then, that he’s _still_ not strong enough.

“Hm.” The man thinks for a moment, before flipping his page and continuing. “Yes, a fitting reminder of your failure. After all, distraction on the battlefield can be deadly.” Mihawk takes a pointed sip of his wine, savoring it for far longer than necessary. Bastard. “Hopefully when we begin again on Monday, your focus will have returned.”

Monday? Zoro groans and rolls his head back, ignoring the throb in his skull. “That’s a full week away, can’t we just get back to it tomorrow?”

“We can ‘get back to it’ as soon as you’ve come to terms with whatever’s been distracting you. Be that a day or the rest of your lifetime, you can wait.”

Oh, boy. Yeah, this is _not_ a conversation Zoro is having, not right now. He slumps back down on the couch and closes his eyes. “Nothing’s distracting me.”

“Then why didn’t you dodge?”

_Because I didn’t want to._

“Because I didn’t see—“

“Do you think I’m an idiot?”

The room has suddenly become deathly quiet, and Zoro gets the distinct feeling he’s not getting out of this conversation anytime soon.

Mihawk sighs, crossing his arms and legs and glaring at Zoro like a distressed dad would a rowdy toddler who just broke the vase. The wine and newspaper have been placed on the table beside him, forgotten. It would almost be funny, except for the dark look in Mihawk’s eyes that makes it clear he’s not joking.

“You’ve been here for a year now, under my instruction and training. I’d be a fool if I didn’t notice that my student has been acting irrationally this past week. _Perhaps_ , I thought, _today he’ll get over it._ But you’ve been progressively doing worse, day by day. I thought giving you a week would be enough, and then you do this.”

The disappointment in his teacher’s voice is almost more painful than the bloody gash through his eye. “I didn’t _do_ anything,” Zoro mutters, under his breath.

“Yes,” Mihawk agrees, “and isn’t that the point. I made a promise to train you all out, to help you improve, in order for you to one day surpass me as the world’s greatest swordsman. You can’t surpass me if you're dead.”

Zoro scoffs. “You wouldn’t have killed me.”

“You don’t believe that for a second.”

He’s right.

When Zoro doesn’t have anything to say to that, Mihawk continues. “You’re lucky I‘m as fast as I am, Roronoa. Your balance was far off, you couldn’t have countered, so if I hadn’t realized at the last second you didn’t plan on dodging, you’d have lost far more than an eye.”

The words are out of his mouth before he can think about them, before he can take them back. “Maybe that would’ve been for the best.”

No response. He glances over at Mihawk to see the man has leaned forward, elbows on his knees as he stares at Zoro—pointedly, almost like he can see through him, read his thoughts. He probably can.

“This is ridiculous. You have a dream to achieve before you are allowed to die,” Mihawk snaps, distaste sharp as a blade on his tongue. “Is that really how you would want your story to end? Roronoa Zoro, the man who died without a fight, who failed to achieve his goal of surpassing the world’s greatest swordsman? Is that what you want your captain to hear of you, that you were too weak to continue on his journey with your crew so you died for no reason? Is that what your nakama died for, so you could off yourself before your time?”

Those words make Zoro’s blood run cold.

“Today was your one warning.” Without any fanfare, Mihawk stands and picks up his belongings from the table. “The next time you wander into a fight with no intention of fighting back, I’ll happily end your life. I won’t tolerate this nonsense again. Someone as pathetic as the man you were today has no business calling themself the world’s greatest.”

The door to the main hall slams and Zoro is alone.

As the weight of Mihawk’s threat crashes down on him, he lets himself collapse back onto the couch, now singular eye locked on the ceiling. The fresh wound throbs more than before as he attempts to think.

He doesn’t think he’s ever been scolded like that before, not for a long time at least. With Nami and Usopp and Chopper and—well, Sanji but let’s not deal with this just yet—their criticism, it had meant nothing. Zoro was always steadfast in his belief in his destiny, and whatever he did, he did it to get him closer to his end goal, so their criticism didn’t ever matter enough to turn him around.

But this? This hurts. He feels nauseous, and not just from blood loss. Mihawk always knows how to call him on his bullshit, but he’s never snapped like that. He’s never trivialized Zoro’s dream like that. _No_ one has. At least, no one who’s still alive.

Slowly he lifts an arm to cover his face. “Fuck,” he whispers, and his voice is a lot hoarser than usual.

_What the fuck was I thinking?_

He _knew_ Mihawk wouldn’t hold back, he _knew_ it was a killing blow, and he let it hit anyway. Mihawk was— _is—_ right. If Mihawk’s reflexes were any slower, Zoro’s dream would have died right then and there.

It would have been fitting. In fact, in the moment, it had almost seemed poetic. He would have died in utter defeat, unseen by anyone but the killer, on a gloomy island, all alone. Zoro could see the dramatic irony in it.

He would have died at the hands of a Warlord, just like the cook.

...But no. No, Mihawk made it clear, his death wouldn’t be just like the cook’s. Because the cook died to _protect_ something, to make sure that every Strawhat had the chance to see the rest of the Grand Line with their own eyes. If Zoro let himself die right now, for nothing, he’d be spitting in the face of Sanji’s sacrifice. 

Against his better judgment, Zoro laughs. It’s a small, admittedly pathetic sound. He’s such an idiot. A second death doesn’t cancel out the first—and even if it did, foolishly dying here could never equate to what Sanji did. Sanji _sacrificed_ himself for Luffy, he took Zoro’s place in fighting Kuma. That’s not something that can be rivaled by Zoro cutting his own life short.

He laughs again, a bit more desperate than before. He’s smiling, more than he has in over a year. Realizing how much of a selfish jerk he’s been for the past twelve months is honestly pretty cathartic. _I’m such a hypocrite._

What happened to his promise to Kuina? That one of them would live to be the world’s greatest swordsman? And he promised Luffy that he would never lose again. He promised it with Sanji watching. Can he really allow survivors’ guilt to stand in the way of his dream—of _Luffy’s_?

As much of a bastard as Sanji was, Zoro knows that his deceased nakama wouldn’t want that.

He wouldn’t _say_ it, sure, but Zoro’s pretty sure he knew the guy well enough to figure it out.

* * *

It’s two weeks later when Zoro confronts Mihawk again. This time, Wado Ichimonji is drawn. The bandages are removed from his eye, revealing the appropriately badass scar that Zoro will always wear as a reminder. 

Mihawk hums quietly as Zoro approaches the dining room table, setting down his glass of wine. “That took longer than I expected. Have you come to ask me to kill you again?”

He shakes his head. “I was working some things out.”

Zoro concentrates for a moment and flicks Wado to the side, expanding his armament Haki to cloak the blade. He’s been practicing. Day in, day out, refocusing himself, reminding himself that he has a goal that he has to reach, _promises_ that he swore to keep.

_Never lose again._

_Become the world’s greatest swordsman._

_Keep going._

Mihawk watches silently as Zoro stands there, five seconds, ten, twenty. He feels pretty awkward just standing there so after thirty seconds he relaxes his body and approaches his teacher, the blade still covered.

“Well, it appears you’ve succeeded,” Mihawk says with the faintest hint of a smile. “It’s no mastery, but you’ve improved significantly since last time. We’ll continue your training once I’ve finished my drink.”

Just barely swallowing a whoop of excitement, Zoro settles for a grin and moves to sheathe Wado. As he drops his Haki, he catches a glimpse of something flickering on the blade—maybe a trick of the light, but the glimmer of the darkened metal and light for a second almost looks like fire.

Zoro thinks of the last time he’d seen a light like that—over a year ago, at a certain shitty bastard’s grave, protected by a dead sword and tangerines. 

The grin settles to a small smile as he closes his eyes and sheathes Wado completely. He’s done lingering in the past. His friends on the other side will always have his back going forward, and that’s really all he needs to know.

It’s time to keep going.

**Author's Note:**

> _A weird part of you thinks that, if you could walk on your own right now, you’d totally kick his ass for that dumbass stunt he pulled during the fight. What kind of bullshit was that, thinking he could take your place? He wouldn’t have survived this. But you did. And now you’re both alive, instead of just you. You were protecting your crew, he doesn’t get to take that from you._
> 
> -the line from Search No More that inspired this


End file.
